Merkiam on Birds of Lewis County, New York. 123 
77. Molothrus ater. 
Hfrst plumage : female. Above olivaceous-brown, the primaries, secon- 
dariesj'-gmater and middle coverts, and every feather upon the nape^and 
interscapuLsr-rggion, edged with light sugar-brown. Superciliary line 
and entire underjastg^elicate brownish-yellow. The throat and lower 
area of abdomen immaculate ; everywhere else thickly streaked with 
purplish -drab. From a specimen in, my cabinet taken at Cambridge, 
Mass., August 4, 1875. A male in first plumage differs in being much 
darker and more thickly streaked beneath. Specimens in process of 
change into the autumnal plumage are curiously patched'and marked 
with the light brown of the first plumage and the darker feathers of the. 
fall dress. All the remiges and rectrices are moulted with the rest of the 
first plumage during the first moult. 
REMARKS ON SOME OF THE BIRDS OF LEWIS COUNTY, 
NORTHERN NEW YORK. 
BY C. HART MERRIAM. 
{Continued from p. 56.) 
Melanerpes erythrocephalus. Red-headed Woodpecker. — This 
handsome bird, the most beautiful, to my eye, of all our Woodpeckers, 
may be regarded as a common resident in Lewis County ; for since my 
earliest recollection — and the bird has always been a favorite with me — 
it has been plentiful throughout the entire year, excepting only during 
those winters which followed unusually small yields of beechnuts. 
Like the Yellow-bellied and Golden-winged Woodpeckers, and to a cer- 
tain extent the Red-bellied also, it is generally considered a truly migra- 
tory species wherever it occurs at all (in th'e Eastern Province) north of 
the Southern States. In 1862 Dr. Coues gave it as a “ summer resident ” in 
the District of Columbia, stating that it “ arrives in spring usually the 
last week in April ; leaves about the middle of September.” * Turnbull 
says (1869) that in East Pennsylvania and New Jersey it is “ plentiful, 
arriving in the latter part of April, and departing in September or begin- 
ning of October.” + Again, in 1868, Coues gives it as a “ rare summer 
visitant ”J to New England, and De Kay tells us (1843) that it “ arrives in 
* List of Birds ascertained to inhabit the District of Columbia. By Elliott 
Coues and D. Webster Prentiss. From Smithsonian Report for 1861, 1862, 
p. 403. 
+ Birds of East Pennsylvania and New Jersey. By William P. Turnbull, 
LL. D. Glasgow (Cuts), p. 15, 1869. 
X Proceed. Essex Inst., Vol. V, p. 263, 1868. 
